Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services

4 days

Course Overview

This 4 day course is intended for students who need to learn and understand the full reporting lifecycle of designing, managing, and accessing reports in a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (or 2008R2) environment. Days 1 and 2 will familiarise attendees with the Reporting Services development tools used to create and author reports, and will enable students to design initially basic, then more complex, reports. All of the data regions utilised in report design are covered here including tables, matrices, lists, and charts. Interactive features such as drilldown and drill-through reports are also covered in this section, as are the implementation and use of report parameters. Day 3 builds upon the knowledge gained over the previous two days by covering advanced report design concepts such as using Analysis Services as a data source, making your reports more dynamic (such as allowing users to interactively select groups for a matrix through parameters), alternating background colours for table rows, and other handy tips to enable developers to design truly professional reports. Day 4 of the course deals more specifically with the role of the Report Server itself. Here, students will learn how to deploy reports to a Report Server, manage Report Server content, handle subscriptions, and control access to reports.

Concise coverage of the subject matter is augmented with plenty of hands-on exercises to facilitate the learning process and to enable students to quickly gain confidence in using Reporting Services. This course can be delivered on either a SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2008R2 database platform. Additionally, with the course structure being fully modularised, customised versions of this course can also be devised and delivered. For example, clients interested only in report development could attend just the first 3 days of the course omitting Report Server management ordinarily covered on day 4.

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Understand the Reporting Services Architecture and Report Lifecycle

Create and Edit Reports using Tables, Matrices, and Lists

Enhance Reports by Implementing Interactive Features

Incorporate Charts, Indicators, and other Graphical Features into Reports

Work with Data Sources and Datasets

Understand Advanced Report Design Concepts

Set up Report Publishing and Execution Settings

Manage Report Server Content with Report Manager

Distribute Reports with Subscriptions

Secure Report Server Resources

Prerequisites

No prior knowledge of the subject matter is assumed. However, students should ideally be familiar with basic programming concepts, and understand the fundamental design of relational databases and data normalization. Some prior working knowledge of SQL Server 2012 (or previous version), and the use of SQL Server Management Studio, is assumed. Attendees should additionally be familiar with the SQL query language, in particular the SELECT statement used for retrieving data. The course, “Microsoft SQL Server: Querying Data for Report Developers”, would be an ideal primer for anyone considering taking this course.